God, Politics, and Evil

Strange things happen in the days leading up to a national election. This morning's case was courtesy of the center article at CNN.com which reads "When 'God's Will,' Rape and Pregnancy Collide" (Caution: the article contains explicit details). Whatever political hiccup has given rise to this media maelstrom, the article undoubtedly brings up a profound theological and, even more immediately, deeply personal question: Does God will unspeakable evil to occur?

Any biblical answer to this question must take into account the full scope of God's self-revelation in Scripture, bow before his transcendent wisdom, coordinate our ethical discourse to His character, confess our human finitude, acknowledge the futility of unbelief, speak of His redeeming work in history, survey His unwavering promises, hope in His final judgment, and always look to the ruling Lamb who was slain by lawless men "according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23) to the praise of His glory.

The purpose of this post, however, is not to explore these Christian imperatives nor to evaluate the article's featured comments by Rabbi Harold Kushner (which are disturbing for their sentimentality) or Father Tom Reese (whose comments pose a false disjunction between biology and sovereignty). The intent here is to respond to what may be the gut-level reaction of too many who first hear of God's will and the world's wickedness in the same sentence. The article quotes Paul Root Wolpe, the director of the Center of Ethics at Emory University, as saying that the idea of God's willing (presumably, in any sense) evil is akin to asserting that "you shouldn't pull people out of the rubble because God intended the earthquake to happen or we shouldn't try to cure disease because it's God who gave us the disease."

Of course, we who hear such statements should respond with patience and charity. But we must also remember that the Bible understands such deterministic notions (and the passivity they entail) to be wholly antithetical to its own teaching concerning the will of God and human action, including the proper response of Christians to divinely ordained evil. For starters, David's violation of Bathsheba was evil because it was first an assault on God (Ps 51:4). Assyria received her punishment because of the God who controls nations as a man would wield a club (Is 10:15-16). Similarly, Christian service has value because of the Lord who consecrates it (Col 3:23-24). Though we cannot comprehend it, these examples alone teach that human action, whether for evil or in compassion, is intelligible only because of the God whose personal presence and sovereign will makes it so, and none of that entails the sort of God-endorsement of evil or Christians' toleration of it as the media seem to be suggesting.

So friends, in the face of evil, let's be biblical. Let's be Calvinists. But, as I've heard it said, let's be Calvinists "who sweat." Even better, let's teach and model the fact that it is precisely Calvinists who sweat, and sweat the most, because of the overruling providential activity of the God who calls us to action. Whether we pull people from rubble, labor to cure disease, grieve over horrific sexual sin, weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), or hand over some water to a little one (Matt 10:42), our work will register in heaven and on earth according to the will of the God who bled.

We exist to call the Church, amidst a dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship, and life.